Of Being Alone
by Nicole Sabatti
Summary: Rinoa mourns the loss of somebody close to her, and it isn't who you might think...


**Disclaimer:** The copyright to Final Fantasy VIII (including all its characters and everything else contained within those sweet, sweet four discs) is owned by the mighty Squaresoft. I, unfortunately, own none of it.

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I visit your grave everyday. Sometimes I come just to be alone, other times I put flowers down. Each time I bring different types, I never knew your favourites. I don't even know if you had a favourite flower. Then again, I don't see how you could. I don't suppose it makes a difference. Now.

A simple wooden cross marks your grave. Grave. Such an empty word. Shallow, hollow, earthy. I can't bear to think of you lying under there, the body I once held so close, now infested. Crawling. Rotting.

It's funny how the flowers conceal the soil's sordid secrets. Nodding their tiny, pretty heads in the breeze, never allowing anyone more than a peek underneath their leafy skirts.

Such beautiful flowers, extending to some indeterminable point in the distance, forever far away. 

I had always felt a connection with Edea's Orphanage, even though I was never one of the children that played here over a decade ago. It feels right that you should rest here, in a place so peaceful, so quiet that even the hushed whisper of the wind seems too loud. It was a place I could come to whenever I felt alone. Strange, that I should come here when I wanted company more than anything. But then again, I always had you.

Not anymore. Nothing anymore. Lonely evermore. The flowers bow and dip, mocking me, my pathetic helplessness. My incompleteness.

The others used to joke that we were joined at the hip. I used to laugh with them. I never once considered that we would be apart. How naïve of me. Nothing in this world is immortal. Even the sea, the sky, even the mountains will one day be eroded away. Turned to dust. Carried on the wind. Returned to the earth.

We were inseparable, even in battle. It made them laugh to see such a tiny thing launch itself at enemies well over twice its size, lunging at Marlboros, ruby dragons, even Ultimecia. They laughed, but they could never mock your loyalty, your dedication, the trust I placed in you. The ultimate trust. Our ultimate bond.

I remember finding you. Waking in the morning, leaning over to cuddle you as I always did. Finding a cold, hard…lump instead of your warm body. I tried to wake you. I thought perhaps there had been a sudden drop in temperature overnight and that was why you were so cold. Not really. That was unheard of in the height of summer. But so many thoughts passed through my mind. Silly, stupid thoughts. None of them made any sense. I would have believed anything but the truth. I tried to keep it out, but eventually it hammered its way through to my brain. It would not rest until it knew I realised you were…

I can't say the word. Even now. In my head. I couldn't say it then either. I just lay on my bed, with you beside me, as always. We were both still, motionless. I tried to become lifeless. As if it were a game. Like the ones we used to play.

_Faster! Faster!_

A child's voice. Mine, as I rode on your back, tiny fists clenched in a mass of fur, watching from my safe seat as you tottered on legs unsteady with my weight. But you would not let me go.

I have a box filled with memories of you. Photographs. Old toys. Your favourite blanket. Things that once littered my room but now hurt so much to even look at that I keep them hidden under my bed. Like a lovesick teenager trying to get over her first love.

We buried you on the day you…After they took you from my room. When I didn't come for breakfast they knew something was wrong. Somehow they expected it more than I did. They did not seem as surprised as I expected them to be. As I wanted them to be. They noticed you were getting older, but I only recognised the youth in your soul. 

_He's not as young as he was._

A diplomatic way of telling me to expect what I tried to pretend would never happen.

I was a child when I found you. A shivering pup, abandoned, forgotten. Staring balefully up at me with those big, beautiful eyes. Puppy-dog eyes that retained their innocent expression even in adulthood.

He did not approve of you. My 'father'. Of course he wouldn't. He hated anything unpredictable, could not allow anything that wouldn't follow his orders (although you had no trouble obeying my commands) into his perfect, structured, little routine. 

The first proper argument I had with him was over you.

He called you filthy, disgusting, smelly. At every opportunity he could. Whenever you chewed the legs of his desk, his chair, his shoes. Always his things. Funny how nothing I owned got chewed.

He tried to make me leave you outside. In the rain. He probably hoped you'd catch pneumonia. He probably secretly enjoyed watching me stare at you through the window, my hot breath steaming up the glass, tearful eyes reflected in the pane.

I hated him. I let you in when he had gone to bed. Or out to dinner or some stupid function somewhere. I let you sleep in my bed, where it was warm. I tried to dry you with a towel but you wouldn't keep still.

I got up early to wash the sheets myself, so no-one would ask why they were covered with dirty rainwater. It was our secret. We defied my father together. 

I haven't told him what happened to you. Not that he'd care. It's not as if I still speak to him anyway.

We held a small funeral. Selphie cried. I thought that was sweet of her. I made no secret of my tears then. Even though I had tried before. I don't know why I cared what the others would think about me. Perhaps I thought they would laugh at me. Try to make a joke out of my sorrow. Out of you.

But they didn't. They were sympathetic.

Unlike my father when he found out exactly what I thought of his greedy, oppressive country. His leader. His army. Him.

He shouted at me. Yelled, until the windowpanes shook and spittle spewed from his mouth. He called me a disgrace. He said no wonder my mother had died, having a daughter like me. I wanted to hit him. Cruel, insensitive bastard with his spiteful comments. Hurting me in the worst possible way he knew how.

I was glad when I left. When we left. I couldn't bear that house any longer, the sight of him. We left together, the two of us. It was our own adventure. A step into the unknown, the unexpected.

I can't pretend I was happy all the time. No-one can be happy all the time, not even Selphie. I had no idea how hard it could be just to survive. I was never taught how to fend for myself, how to live without having to rely on other people. 

But at least I wasn't alone. Until now.

I didn't realise it until I noticed the indent your body had made in the sheets, until I placed my hand over the patch and could draw no heat from it. As I left the room, inhaling the last scent of you. As I stood outside, with the sea breeze tugging at my hair as they heaped soil onto your body, the sound of the shovel scraping earnestly at the earth, all other noise consumed by that horrible scratching. Even the gulls circling overhead were drowned out, their beaks screeching notes I could not hear.

It was then I realised I was alone.

But then, I don't suppose alone is the right word. I'm never really alone. I have the others. I have Squall.

Lonely. Lacking. Fragmented. Those words seem more accurate, more fitting.

But I still have Squall.

Even though I have lost my best friend. My partner.

I still have Squall.

But am I happy?

Am I, Angelo?


End file.
